opinionfandomcom-20200213-history
Islamists touting growing rise of Islam in America
by user Layla Crossposted from The HILL Chronicles A reader gave me a link to Garamchai.com where they gladly inform you that you can find anything Indian. While browsing the site I came across a blog post, Muslims and Islam in America. Basically the article touts that Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions in the United States today and has become the second largest religion in the United States. Well I suppose if you are a Muslim that would make you proud. However, I as a Christian find this alarming in that our was founded on Christian/Judeo principles. that make you wonder if the author of this post hates Muslims? Or even Arabs? In a population of about three-hundred million people living in the United States any movement, ideology, or sub-culture (gothic example) can generate a substantial following. Consider that a majority of this rise of Islam is most likely due in part to the large immigration of first generation Arab/Muslims in our nation. I noted that the blog post did not mention this very important fact. Interestingly the article mentions Rep. Keith Ellison becoming the first Muslim in U.S. Congress going on to site some facts on Ellison. In fact, they encourage you if you are interested in Islam to visit GaramChai’s extensive mosques section and get in touch with Muslims. what our ignorant author did not: that Keith Ellison is not an immigrant. He converted. Her stating him here as an example is completely out of context. More alarming is that they have a section on the History of Islam in America which takes you to a link here. You will note when you read the article there that many facts are misrepresented and skewed — not surprising at all. Clear evidence of the presence of Islam in America begins with the Moriscoes who accompanied the Spanish invaders. Following their time, great numbers of Muslim slaves were imported to this continent to work on the plantations of the South. They were troublesome slaves, as they often incited rebellion among other enslaved people and were sometimes not desired for servitude because of their history of "being difficult to manage." she's telling us that it was bad that slaves rebelled? Is she saying slavery should still exist? "In fact, at one point during the African holocaust, importation of bondsmen from certain nations and areas of Africa that were predominantly Muslim became prohibited. Afccording to Dr. sulayman Nyang of Howard University, some of the nations banned were the Jalofs, Biafras, Mandingos, and Hausa-Fullah. An estimated 25,000 Mandingos, 45,000 Fullah, 15,000 Hausa and 5,000 Muslims from other communities were brought to America between 1726 and 1806.1" As many at least ten percent of the African slaves came from Muslim backgrounds. Many of these Muslim slaves were highly literate. Their literacy clearly set them apart from the rest of the slaves (and most of their owners). As Sylviane A. Diouf points out, the hostility of the slaveholders expressed toward the literate Africans derived not from fear that their property would trick them in some way. Rather, the hostility described by Theodore Dwight, the secretary of the American Ethnological Society, arose because in the eyes of the slaveholders literacy was dangerous. The Africans’ skills constituted a proof of humanity and civilization that did not owe anything to the Christians’ supposed civilizing influence and therefore represented a threat to the notion of whites’ intellectual domination and refutation of the belief that Africans were inherently inferior2. Most of these Muslims remain anonymous or are little more than names in slave-property lists. But much evidence of the Muslim presence has survived 3. In spite of the effort to wipeout the slaves’ Islamic identity, Islamic practices and beliefs remained strong with many of them. Sulayman Nyang points out, "To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence of any African Muslim slave family that survived slavery and maintained Islam as a way of life."4 While the materials available relating to the presence of Muslims in America during this historical period is gradually increasing, the story of these Muslims remains little known outside small segments of the African American Muslim community. (emphasis mine) I emphasize the gradually increasing because from the research I have done what they are reporting here is more made-up than actual truth. If you follow the above link "materials available" the site suggests further reading about Muslim slaves in America. Ironically in checking my reference regarding slavery in America Islam is not mention, though that is not meant to suggest that some of the slaves brought to America at that time were not Muslim. But the inference in the above is sheer exaggeration of truth since I could find no validation for this, except on Islamic sites. That should make one question why. Of course I found the endorsement of CAIR where there is a variety of downloads available in English and Arabic. One topic in particular caught my attention, which was the Ethnicity of Converts found here. It is a pie chart breakdown of Muslim converts. http://thehillchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/ethnicity_of_converts1.gif I note as you do that the largest conversions come from Black Americans only second by white Americans. That is a huge percentage and says to me that somehow Christianity is failing these people miserably that they would even consider converting to a religion founded on "conversion by the sword". guess the Inquisition wasn't 'conversion by the sword?' The Christian Crusades probably weren't either. What I did not find was CAIR contribution as American citizens to the United States - their host country. Unfortunately their allegiance is not to the United States, or even their originating country, but to Islam first and foremost. That in and of itself should concern you greatly. say this about Jews too--and we all know what kind of people anti-semites are. __NOEDITSECTION__ Category: Opinions Category: Opinions by User Layla Category: February 11, 2007 Category: religion Opinions From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.